Cook's Country

-"Cook's Country" is about more than just getting dinner on the table.

We're also fascinated by the people and stories behind the dishes.

We go inside kitchens in every corner of the country to learn how real people cook.

And we look back through time to see how history influences the way we eat today.

We bring that inspiration back to our test kitchen so we can share it with you.

This is "Cook's Country."

-Today on "Cook's Country," Christie and Bridget bake a Mexican classic, conchas, Jack takes a deep dive into egg substitutes, and Morgan and I make an elegant brunch, skillet Eggs Sardou.

That's all right here on "Cook's Country."

-Funding for this program has been provided by the following.

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From the backyard master to the weekend host and the beginner just starting out, Monument brings people together.

Monument Grills -- the everybody, everywhere grill.

-Teakhaus, inspired by a passion for cooking and respect for our planet.

Each board is handcrafted from sustainably sourced wood designed for every step, from food prep to presentation.

Teakhaus.

-Today's a great day because we're making conchas, those beautiful, buttery, sweet morning buns that come from Mexico.

Now, they're perfect, as I said, for breakfast or a midday snack.

But they're even more perfect when Christie is going to show us how to make them.

-Well, I'm very excited to make conchas with you.

And you're right, they're so buttery, but they're also light and tender, and they're really good for dunking in your hot chocolate or your coffee.

And we'll start by using some bread flour.

-Great.

-So I have 3 2/3 cup.

That's 20 1/8 ounces of bread flour in my stand mixer bowl.

That's how we're going to get started.

And I'm going to add a tablespoon of instant or rapid rise yeast.

We'll just give that a stir to get it well mixed.

All right.

And we're going to be using our dough hook.

So I'll get that all set up.

We're going to start with 2 large eggs, and I'm going to add them to 1 1/4 cups of water.

Now, the really important thing here is that they're both room temperature, because we are going to be adding softened butter to the mix in just a few minutes.

-Okay.

-And we don't want to have a cold dough that will cause that to stiffen and not incorporate well.

-Okay.

-We'll break up the yolks and just mix this together.

All right.

Now, with my mixer going on low speed, I'm going to stream in this mixture until the dough comes together and I don't see any dry bits of flour.

-Okay.

-It'll take us about two minutes.

Okay.

So you can see there isn't any dry flour left anymore.

Now we're going to let this rest for 15 minutes.

You know what this is?

-Yes.

Autolyse.

-Yes.

That's going to give us time for the flour to continue to hydrate and jump-start the gluten development.

We let the dough rest.

Now it's time to add some sugar.

This is a 1/4 cup or 1 3/4 ounces of granulated sugar.

And I have 2 teaspoons of table salt.

-Okay.

-So we'll let this run at medium-low speed for about 30 seconds just to get that all combined.

That looks good.

I have 13 tablespoons of unsalted butter here.

I've cut them into 13 pieces.

So we'll turn the mixer on to medium speed, and I'll add the pieces one at a time.

This is nice and soft... -Yes.

-...so it'll incorporate easily.

And I want to wait until each piece has incorporated before I add the next.

It'll take somewhere between 4 and 6 minutes.

Now that all the butter is in, we're going to let the dough hook knead away and get this really nice and kneaded for about 10 minutes.

What we're looking for is this sticky dough to cleanly pull away from the sides of the bowl.

Look at that.

See how it's pulling away?

-Definitely.

-I think we're good.

-Oh, yeah.

-I have a large greased bowl ready to receive the dough, and we'll just scrape it out.

I also have a greased piece of plastic wrap that we'll cover this with because, as the dough rises, we don't want it to stick to the top.

And we do want this to double in size.

-Mm.

-So that's going to take us about an hour.

While the dough is rising, we can start working on our sugary, crispy topping.

I have a clean bowl.

I've already put 3/4 of a cup or 4 1/8 ounces of bread flour to begin and add some structure.

I have 1 cup or 4 ounces of confectioners' sugar, and I also have 10 tablespoons of vegetable shortening.

Now, we're going to flavor this with some vanilla.

Most of the conchas you find are either flavored with vanilla or chocolate.

So this is 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

And then, this is an 1/8 of a teaspoon of salt.

Now, for this, we're going to use the paddle attachment.

So we'll put this on low speed.

And we'll mix this until it's nice and combined and almost has the texture of like a soft clay.

So that'll take about 2 minutes.

-On low.

-On low.

So I'll transfer this to my clean counter.

We want to divide this into 12 pieces.

I'm going to weigh this.

I'm looking for about 29 grams each.

-Okay.

-A little over that.

So, they're not that big.

And 12.

Perfect.

Now we get to play.

So, we're just going to roll these into balls.

-All right.

-So, we're just going to keep rolling these until we have 12 nice, evenly sized balls.

And then, we're going to cover them and put them in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to get them nice and firm.

-Great.

-Look at this beauty.

-That is gorgeous.

-Well, it's time.

So, this is my greased plastic.

I'm going to save this.

I have a nice, clean counter.

-No flour.

-No flour.

Right.

So I'm going to take my dough and I'm going to roll it out.

Ho-ho!

-Oh, that's a beautiful dough.

-Isn't she pretty?

We had 12 sugar dough balls.

So we need 12 of these dough balls.

-Regular dough balls.

-Look at this math that we're doing.

All right.

So I'm going to portion this.

Now, if you're nervous about portioning it this way you can obviously weigh it out.

I do that a lot.

This part of the process will be very familiar to you because it's like any other role you've ever done.

So we'll start by bringing the sides up into the center.

So we're creating some surface tension.

-Yes.

-And then we'll flip them over so that the seam's on the bottom.

-Mm-hmm.

-Now, while I'm not using this dough, I want to make sure it doesn't dry out.

So I'm going to take that greased plastic, and we'll just keep it covered.

So, we'll cup our hands over the ball, and you can use a little bit of pressure.

And we're just going to make little circles around the dough.

Lovely.

So I have a rimmed baking sheet with some parchment in it.

We're going to transfer this over seam side down.

-Okay.

-We'll do six per tray, and we'll keep this covered as we shape.

Bridget, our dough is rolled.

Now we need to go in and see if we have any air bubbles.

-Okay.

-If you start to see anything rising, you want to just take a paring knife and give it a pop.

I don't see any on mine.

Do you have any on yours?

-Maybe just a wee bit there.

Pop.

How about that?

-Yeah.

Just want to pop them now because we want them to rise evenly.

And then, we'll go ahead and cover them back up.

Now, we want these to rise until they're doubled in size.

And that'll take an hour to an hour and a half.

But while that's happening, at the same time, we're going to work on our sugar crust.

-Okay.

-So we have our chilled sugar dough.

I grabbed those from the fridge.

-Nice and cold.

-Here is the second phase of our art project.

-This is great.

-[ Laughs ] We have some nice heavy duty zipper lock bags, and we've cut the sides of them.

-Yes.

-And left the bottom intact.

-Got it.

-So we've got a little hinge here.

And then, I took a 4-inch round.

This is the size that we want to press our sugar balls out to.

-Okay.

-So you want to put the circle on the bottom.

-Yes.

-Before we roll, though, you want to take your dough ball.

I've got a 1/3 of a cup of some more bread flour here.

And just want to make sure that it's well coated.

And this will help limit sticking.

-Okay.

-And then, you and I both have a glass pie plate.

You could use a glass casserole dish.

Something you can see through that has a nice flat bottom.

-Okay.

-And I'm going to look through this and press out my dough ball until it fits that circle.

You want it to stay within that 4-inch circle, or it can get too thin.

And then, it'll be really hard to manipulate.

-What do you think?

-That's great.

That's great.

All right, now you want to very carefully peel this because you don't want it to stick to the top.

Perfect.

And then very gently peel this off the other side.

They're very delicate, so take your time.

And now just drape it over.

Yes.

And you can press it.

As these rise, the sugar coating will rise with it.

Now, here's an important step.

You want to wipe this clean.

-Okay.

-Because that's just going to stick to your second sugar dough.

-Right.

-So we're just going to keep pressing and covering until we have all 12 of our conchas ready to go.

Great.

So we are fully draped.

Now, the last thing we need to do is score it.

Conchas means "seashell."

-Right.

-And, so, we have to make the seashell print on the conchas or it's just a bun.

-Art class continues.

I'm so psyched.

-So we can take the plastic off for right now.

Notice that we're just using a very non-scary, non-lethal-looking butter knife because we want to make a very gentle score in these.

-Okay.

-So the design is a series of concentric curves that come from the same spot.

-Okay.

-So we'll pick a spot near the top.

And we just want to make some nice curvy lines that come out of that, 5, 6.

Shortening has a really high melting point.

So these scores are going to go into the oven.

And even with the heat of the oven, they're going to hold.

It's not like butter where it would just melt.

-Sure.

-We'll just continue to score the rest of these.

We'll cover them back up and let them continue their rise.

So another 1/2 hour or an hour until they've doubled in size.

-Okay.

Should I get the coffee brewing?

-Absolutely.

Well, these look a little different.

-They do.

-I have the oven rack set to the upper-middle and lower-middle positions, and the heat is at 350 degrees.

-Okay.

-So we'll bake these until they've risen a little bit more and they look gorgeous.

We're looking for a temperature of 205 degrees.

So that'll take 20 to 25 minutes.

And we want to make sure to go in about halfway through baking and switch and rotate the sheet pans.

-Okay.

Sounds good.

-Oh.

-How beautiful.

-They're so pretty.

-It's like brioche and a sugar cookie had a baby.

-[ Laughs ] Well, let's check and see if they're done.

-And you're looking for... -205 degrees.

-Okay.

-So I either want to go in through the side or kind of between one of the bits of sugar.

So we wanted 205.

It's just a little bit over.

That's still going to be delicious.

You have to wait 15 minutes.

You know as well as I that a dough like this needs to cool before we can enjoy it.

-I see we have a visitor.

-Well, I mentioned that chocolate and vanilla were the most popular flavors that you would find with conchas?

-Sure.

-So I thought you'd like to see the chocolate and how pretty it is.

-Great.

And instructions for these are on our website.

All right.

I'll save that for later, though.

-Okay.

-Because I'm all here for the vanilla.

-Yes, yes, we have some coffee.

It's a formidable roll.

-Yes.

Super soft.

Actually, really, really light.

-Mm-hmm.

The score stayed really nicely.

We still see the perfect shape of the concha.

-Yes, beautiful.

-The seashell design.

Do we just go for it?

-I'm going to take a little bite before I start tearing it apart.

-Okay.

-All right.

Impossibly light.

-Mm-hmm.

-Really airy.

And then you get that crunch from that sugar crust, as well.

-Mm-hmm.

Not too sweet.

We use the bread flour to give it a little more structure.

-Yeah.

-It's not tough, but it really was strong enough to support that sugary crust.

-Yeah.

This actually might be the fluffiest, lightest one I've ever had.

Christie, thank you so much.

I wouldn't want to bake with anyone else.

-Oh, stop.

-So, if you want to make these fantastic rolls, it starts with an enriched bread dough using eggs and butter.

Then make a sugar crust dough using confectioners' sugar, flour, and shortening.

Press the balls of sugar crust to flatten, and then score a seashell-like pattern in the sugar crust before baking.

So, from "Cook's Country," it's bakery perfection conchas.

-Eggs are used in all sorts of recipes, from appetizers to desserts.

And Jack's here to help tell us what to do if you can't use an egg for whatever reason.

-Yeah, let's say you've got a child who's allergic to eggs and you want to make a birthday cake.

-Mm-hmm.

-Okay.

You need to use an egg replacement.

-Right.

-So we made cookies, popovers, cakes.

Some of these you can even scramble, which we tried to do, but I brought the cake because I thought it was a really good example here.

So, dig in.

You're going to notice some textural differences.

You're going to notice some flavor differences.

So, there are two types of egg replacements.

There's starch-based replacements and protein-based.

-Mm-hmm.

-Now the starch-based actually have starches, leaveners, and gums.

So, the starches are there to keep things moist.

They're like a binder so that things don't dry out when they cool.

The leaveners are there to make things fluffy and tall, and the gums are the emulsifier.

If the ingredient list just had baking soda, you got a lot of browning.

-Oh, that makes sense.

-Yeah.

And some of the brands had baking soda, along with cream of tartar, and the cream of tartar kind of mitigates the browning effect of the baking soda, but you still get the leavening.

I would say the cake and the cookies were the most successful in the tests that we did.

The popovers were kind of a fail.

-Oh, yeah.

-Yeah.

Popovers are so complicated, and you're trying to get so much rise.

It just didn't happen.

The other big difference we noticed is that the protein-based, which are designed for baking as well as for scrambling.

-Mm-hmm.

-So they either have mung beans or split peas.

Because they're designed for scrambling, they have other ingredients.

So, dehydrated onion.

-Wow.

-Which you may be able to taste.

I'm thinking it's more like grassy or vegetable than onion.

Turmeric, because you really want your scrambled eggs to be yellow.

-Mm-hmm.

-And, so, that wasn't necessarily a plus for baking, but they worked pretty well as scrambled.

One brand in particular, it scrambled really nicely.

-Oh.

-Any immediate impressions?

-Texture.

Right off the bat, it's what I'm noticing.

This kind of dissolves in my mouth into a mush.

It's very moist.

It almost turns right to batter on the fork.

It's a -- Yeah.

So the texture of this one is just too wet.

The flavor's okay.

-Okay.

Okay.

-But it is crumbling.

This one's also a bit moist, on the edge of crumbling.

This one's like rubber.

You know, the texture's a little sticky and a little dense, but with frosting and at a party with kids running around, it's completely acceptable.

-If you were making a cake without eggs... -Mm-hmm.

-...which one would you go with?

-Yeah, this one I don't really care for.

But these three would be totally acceptable.

If I had to pick one, I'd probably pick the second one.

-All right.

You want to flip that over?

-Yeah.

-So you picked the JUST Egg.

This is a plant-based one that's got protein in it.

So this is one of the ones you can scramble.

You didn't pick up any of the grassy notes?

-Mnh-mnh.

-It performed nicely in the cookie as well as in the cake.

And if you want something, you can scramble, this was really the only choice if you want to scramble your eggs that we thought was acceptable.

So why don't we go here?

This is the Bob's Red Mill.

This is the one we thought there's a lot of browning.

-Yep.

-And it wasn't so much a problem here in the cake.

The cookies were a little dry, and we wondered whether they kind of over-browned and dried out from that, but it just has the baking soda and doesn't have any cream of tartar in it.

-Okay.

-So why don't we go here?

-This one was really firm.

-Yeah.

Well, that's eggs.

-Ah.

Good to know.

-Well, I did think it's important that these were not as radically different as we might have assumed before the tasting.

-Yeah.

-And I wanted to put that in there and was curious, was she going to pick the egg-based cake or not?

-No!

-I do think it has a sort of taller crumb.

You said it was firmer.

And I think this would be the easiest to frost.

-Yeah.

That's true.

These are very sticky tops.

-Yeah.

And down there's the Judee's.

Now, we like the Judee's.

We thought the flavor was really good.

You said you liked the flavor.

You kind of mashed that one up a little bit.

I don't know.

-Well, I was really trying to get it off the plate, but it just -- Yeah, something about it seems really gummy.

-It performed well in the cookie test.

I think our tasters were more positive about it in the cake tests than you were, but you didn't rule it out and say it was unacceptable.

I mean, it was -- It wasn't your favorite, which is okay.

-Yeah, well, neither were eggs, so... [ Laughter ] This is really interesting.

Thanks, Jack.

-Thank you, Julia.

-And for more information on egg substitutes, check out our website.

-Eggs Sardou is an elegant brunch dish that earned its fame in not one, but two iconic New Orleans restaurants, Brennan's and Antoine's.

It's delicious and fancy, but it can be a bear to make, so Morgan is here, and she's going to show us how to make a simpler version.

-Yeah, Toni, I'm taking this bear, and I'm making it so we can make it on a Sunday morning.

-I love that.

-So it's essentially Eggs Benedict with creamed spinach and artichokes.

It's delicious, but there are a lot of pieces, so I'm trying to streamline each piece.

So, here I'm starting with the hollandaise.

-Okay.

-Here I have some butter.

I have 12 tablespoons of butter I've been melting over medium heat, and I'm just going to get a temp.

Now, this is the hardest part of the recipe is taking this temp.

All right.

So I'm looking for 180 degrees.

This is perfect.

It's at 181.

So I'm gonna pull it off the heat.

All right.

So I'm going to put that in a measuring cup just so it's easier to pour.

Now, this is where the magic of blender hollandaise comes in.

So, here I have a blender.

I'm just going to put everything in here.

And then, it kind of becomes hollandaise with a little know-how.

-Love that.

-So I have 2 egg yolks.

And to this, I'm going to add a tablespoon of lemon juice a teaspoon of hot sauce, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

And I'm just going to let this go until it gets a little frothy.

It'll only take about 10 seconds.

It's looking good.

It's nice and frothy.

All right.

So I am now going to actually leave this on.

I'm going to take this little piece off, and I'm going to stream in the butter.

I really want it to go in there slowly.

It's hot butter, so you want it to just cook the eggs but not actually scramble them.

So I'm just going to let it slowly stream in.

It'll take about a full minute.

I'm going to let this go in.

-Okay.

-This is perfect.

What you want is for it to just kind of, like, barely drip off a spoon like this.

So I'm going to clean up and move on to the ham.

Toni, Eggs Benedict has Canadian bacon.

Eggs Sardou has tasso ham.

-Mm.

-So, if you're not used to tasso ham, what it is, is it's cut from the pork shoulder.

It's seasoned and spiced and smoked.

So I'm going to cut it into 1/4-inch pieces.

This is a 6-ounce piece of tasso ham.

So I've got my tasso ham cut into nice little pieces.

Over here I have two tablespoons of unsalted butter I melted over a medium heat in this 12 inch nonstick skillet.

And I'm going to add in all this tasso ham.

And I'm just going to let it go until it gets nice and brown.

That'll take about five minutes.

All right.

So I'm going to make a beurre mani, which is a way to thicken a sauce.

So here I have 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter.

And I'm just going to mash in a tablespoon of flour.

And it works the same way a roux does.

But you don't have to precook it.

And I'm not really looking for any of that dark toasty flavor you'd get from a roux.

I'm just looking for something that's going to do the same work.

I'm just going to mash it until everything's nice and combined.

Toni, you can see how it's gotten nice and brown.

The spices are really blooming, doing a lot of work.

So I'm going to pull out about half of this.

Don't need to be precious about it, but some of this I'm going to save for later, and some of this is going to create the base for our spinach mixture.

-Okay.

-And I'm using a slotted spoon just so I can make sure to leave any fat I need to behind, have a little more fat in here.

So, now to this ham.

I'm still over medium heat, and I'm going to add in 3 cloves of minced garlic.

I'm just going to let this go until it's nice and fragrant.

It'll take about 30 seconds.

You can smell it.

Smells like garlic and ham.

-That's right.

-So, one thing about Eggs Sardou, there are a lot of pieces.

I'm trying to build as many of them as I can in this one pan.

So, on top of this ham, I'm going to add some spinach.

And I'm going to build my creamed spinach and artichoke mixture on here.

So I have 10 ounces of spinach.

And I'm just going to add this a handful at a time.

I'm just going to let it slowly wilt.

It'll take about 4 minutes for me to get all this wilted in here.

-Okay.

-Now that that's all wilted, I'm going to add in a couple more ingredients to build out the Sardou.

So here I have a cup of heavy cream.

Essentially, I'm building creamed spinach in the same skillet.

I'm using 1 1/3 cup of marinated artichokes that I drained and chopped up.

So I'm not doing any artichoke prep.

These have a ton of flavor already in there.

And then, I'm also going to add 3 ounces of finely grated Parmesan cheese.

I'm also going to add in a teaspoon more of hot sauce.

So I have a little bit in my hollandaise, but I want a little more in here.

And then, I've got 1/2 teaspoon of pepper and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and just a little pinch of nutmeg.

I'm just going to bring it up to a simmer.

Now I'm going to add that beurre mani we made earlier into our sauce.

So it's just going to thicken up just a touch.

It's not going to need a lot.

All right, I see some simmering happening.

So I'm going to just add this in.

So I'm just going to stir it in.

And now I'm just going to let it go until it clings to the back of the spoon.

That won't take very long.

It'll only take about a minute.

So it's looking nice and thick.

But the way I really like to test is I like to see if it clings to the back of the spoon.

I feel like if you get some on there and you can rub your finger through it and it holds.

And now on to the star of the dish, the eggs.

A lot of recipes for Eggs Sardou have you poach them separately, but I'm going to poach them right in this sauce.

So I do like to crack them separately.

Then you can check them out, make sure you don't have any little bits of shell in there.

Then, I'm going to make 8 little wells, and I'm going to do 7 around the edges and 1 in the center.

I'm just gonna nestle my little egg in the little well and then keep rolling with the rest of these.

All the eggs are in there.

So now I want to season them.

So I have 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper.

And I'm just going to sprinkle them directly on all the eggs.

And same with the pepper.

I want to bring it up to a simmer while it's still over medium heat.

And I'm going to cover it and turn it down to medium-low and let it go until the egg whites are fully set but just barely set, and the egg yolks are going to look opaque.

I'm going to turn the skillet as I need.

Eggs can be a little finicky, so sometimes you want to turn it just to kind of even out any hot spots.

-Okay.

-It'll take about 3 to 6 minutes.

All right, Toni, the big unveil.

-Oh.

How beautiful.

-Yeah.

You can see how these egg whites are just set, that rotating the pan helps evenly cook everything nicely.

I'm going to turn this off heat so it doesn't cook anymore.

Well, let's get eatin'.

-Okay.

-So we have our English muffins.

And I'm just going to top each with a nice egg and get plenty of that creamy spinach mixture in here, too.

-Oh, yeah.

-All right.

Here's that quick, easy blender hollandaise.

-Oh it's so luxurious.

-I know, it's velvety.

And then, plenty of that tasso ham we pulled aside.

So this is that crispy ham.

So you get those little crunchy bits on top.

And then, because we're being fancy, I have 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley.

-It's really beautiful.

Mm.

Wow.

-Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It's so creamy and rich.

-It's complex.

-It's complex.

-But it's balanced.

-Mm-hmm.

-No one flavor is dominating the other one.

-The egg is so nice.

It's really nice and runny.

That tasso ham is so nice.

You get the little crispy bits in there.

I feel like the artichokes have this nice tang and a little bit of herbs that they're adding from that marinade.

-Mm-hmm.

It's New Orleans.

We got to try a little hot sauce.

-Yeah!

Yeah, let's do it.

-Mm.

The hot sauce gives just that little pop of vinegar.

-Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It's great because it's so rich, it can handle some acid and some heat.

-Right.

It's really great, Morgan.

Thank you so much for showing me how to make it.

-You're welcome, Toni.

-And if you would like to bring this elegant taste of New Orleans into your home, make an easy blender hollandaise, thicken the sauce with a flour butter mixture, and poach your eggs directly in the sauce.

So, from "Cook's Country," skillet Eggs Sardou.

You can find this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with our product reviews and select episodes, at our website, CooksCountry.com/TV.

-Let us help with dinner tonight.

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